The present invention relates to image-based document processing systems, and is particularly directed to a method of processing a document in an image-based document processing system, such as an electronic image-based bank check processing system, and an apparatus therefor.
A typical electronic image-based bank check processing system includes an electronic imaging camera having a scan rate which is controlled to capture images of documents, such as bank checks, moving past the imaging camera along a document feed path. In an image-based bank check processing system, it is often desirable to establish quality and/or validity of each captured document image before processing the captured document image further downstream along the document feed path or archiving the captured document image. A known way to establish quality and/or validity of each captured document image is to visually inspect each image. However, since the number of documents is most often relatively large, visual inspection is usually impractical. Another known way to establish quality and/or validity of each captured document image is to apply real-time techniques in which general illumination parameters or pixel characteristics, for examples, are analyzed. However, since these real-time techniques are typically based upon statistical methods, many forms of system failure may not be immediately identifiable.